


The uses of Time

by Rae_Saxon



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Because I needed it, Daleks Who?, Divergent Universe Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 11:50:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Saxon/pseuds/Rae_Saxon
Summary: The Doctor, finally returning from his exile into the divergent universe, needs a peace of home. Good thing the Master is around. || Yup, that's the whole plot, I just needed to write a tiny little comfort happy ending between those two, because damn, did this storyline leave me wrecked sometimes.





	The uses of Time

He hadn't allowed himself to even dream of actually making it home. He half expected there to be another another experiment of this side of the door, another dark truth crashing down on him at the end of a long, so long day.

But while Charley and C'rizz were still bickering, the Doctor took a deep breath, took in the air and imagined to taste home. And while Charley and C'rizz were still talking about hope and home, he could feel time all around him, embracing him like an old, trusted friend, as his sense slowly returned to him and made him complete again.

The Doctor allowed himself the tiniest of smiles.

But oh, with time came the exhaustion, with time came the knowledge of how much of it had passed, how long he had been wandering around in the darkness of this unknown universe, stumbled from one dark mind experiment into the next in that galaxy of glass domes.

He threw a glance at his two friends, watched them silently talk for a little, laughing and joking and he could see Charley's heart beating lighter, it was standing on her face. They had returned home and she knew and she was alright, because all the place she had ever wanted to be was with him – Nothing more had mattered, nobody had cut off her sixth sense, nothing had been lost for a girl who had already lost it all.

“Doctor,” she asked, finally lifting her attention from C'rizz to him. “Are you alright? You look a bit pale.”

The Doctor smiled and it was almost convincing this time.

“Just a bit tired. Nothing to worry about. I'm going to have to take a trip to Gallifrey. Explain what happened, that we're no danger for the universe. That Zagreus is neatly trapped on the other side.”

He stepped towards the console, the hands on the levers trembling. He hoped his friends wouldn't notice, but of course they would.

Charley and C'rizz exchanged a short glance.

“I'm alright,” he assured them again. “We're home. Everything is going to be alright now. Come on, old girl,” he whispered towards his TARDIS, and the smile on his face already felt more real. “Take me through time and space.”

“Especially time,” Charley laughed and the Doctor gave her a little grin.

“Especially time!”

And with a little drum roll by C'rizz, he pulled the lever and they were catapulted through the vortex, the Doctor's senses revived with every second, as he laughed excitedly, dancing through the shaking TARDIS as if he was the only person in the room.

He left them in the TARDIS on Gallifrey, neither C'rizz, who had just grasped the concept of time in the first place, nor Charley, who had her fill of Time Lords, wanted to come with him, and so she started showing their young chameleon friend around the ship instead.

It was the chat with Romana, that made the Doctor's exhaustion return. An exhaustion that came from the inside, he realised, something inside of him yearning, screaming for home when all he got was estranged friends on a corrupt planet that had never quite felt like home. The council was discussing heavily, discussing Zagreus, discussing the danger he could still oppose to the society. In the middle of it all, the Doctor had walked out without any of them even realising.

For a few seconds, there he stood, on the brink of the city, looking out to red grasses and fields, the twin suns high on the sky, considering his options. There was the TARDIS, of course. With a little of travelling through time and his two faithful friends by his side, he knew he'd recover soon enough.

Or... well.

He could always go... to what had always came closest to a home in the past?

Or could he?

Nothing to stop him, really. With a little hum, he started to walk, all old-fashioned, with his feet, through the red grasses to the huge estate at the side of the town, seeing the roofs and chimneys already from afar. He ignored the wide entrance gateway and instead entered through a little side door, always opened, even now, slipped into the luxuriously filled hall and swiftly climbed up the stairs. If anyone was living here, he wouldn't know, didn't even stop, look around to find out.

All he could see was home, something familiar, something soothing in this turbulent ocean that was his soul right now.

He slipped into the unmade bed without thinking, wrapped himself up in the blankets, taking a deep breath and _yes_, they smelled just like home, just like what he had needed.

The Doctor wasn't sure how long he had laid there. At some point, he must've drifted off, lost in the exhaustion, lost in the peace of it all. When he woke up, he wasn't alone any more.

“Now, imagine my surprise,” the man in the frame remarked dryly, a silvery eyebrow raised in silent amusement, his arms folded before his chest. “I have a stray in my bed.”

“Ah,” the Doctor gave back with a rather apologetic smile, rubbing his eyes with a yawn as he lifted himself up on his elbows enough to take a better look. “You do forgive me, I hope? In fairness, I wasn't sure you were going to be home. Last time we met, you fell rather unfavourably.”

The Master sent his other eyebrow to join the first, but couldn't stop the hint of a smile that appeared on his face.

“Ah, my dear Doctor, what's a fall to death and a little exile in another universe between old friends.”

“Indeed,” the Doctor grinned. “Nothing to stop us, is it?”

“Apparently,” the Master chuckled, letting himself sink onto the edge of his own bed. The Doctor made some space smiling sheepishly. “Care to tell me how you managed this?”

“Oh, by all means, you go first,” the Doctor gave back, his voice fading into something more serious now.

The Master watched him silently for a few moments.

“You don't want to talk about it,” he finally said and it wasn't a question.

The Doctor half shrugged, half nodded, unsure what to say. There had never been any point in lying to the Master. He knew him better than anyone else in this universe – As much trouble as it made them often enough, right now it had been exactly what he needed.

“I hoped you'd be here,” he finally sighed, because he felt like he needed to, and because it was the truth, and because, when you get exiled into a universe, thinking you'd die there, cut off from everyone you have ever left, a lot of unspoken things come back to haunt you and he didn't want them haunting him any more. “Do you mind? Me being here? Honestly, Master, do you? I can go, but I'd rather... I'd rather not.”

“You're not doing well,” the Master sighed after a little pause, looking up at the ceiling with an annoyed little laugh. “No, I don't mind you being here, Doctor. It has been more than nine centuries since you have last been in my bedroom, but I'm sure even after all this time, you still remember me telling you that you can _always_ come here when in trouble.”

The Doctor gave him the cheekiest of smiles and the Master looked positively overwhelmed at being the recipient of such a gesture.

“What?”, he asked and the Doctor laughed.

“Say it again.”

“Say again what?”

The Doctor grinned, sitting up completely now, so that their faces were right in front of each other, blue eyes meeting blue and sparks seemed to be flying between them.

“Time,” he breathed. “Talk about time to me.”

The Master paused for a second. “They said... you'd go into an anti time place. No concept of time there, was there?”

“It was like someone cut both my arms off and then challenged me in tennis,” the Doctor confirmed with a sad little nod.

The Master winced.

“Must've been nasty.”

“You have no idea. I have...” He took a deep breath. Maybe he needed to talk, maybe he needed to say it for it to finally get out of his system, leave him so he could move on. “I thought I'd die there. Lost. I was so lost. They messed with my mind, my friend's minds, until none of us were sure who we were any more. I can't... I'm not even sure if I am myself any more, Master. I can't tell if I am the same as I was when I had left or if I am a new version, I can't tell if I lost something or if I gained something and whether that'd be good or not. I can't tell my truths from theirs. People have been inside my mind, told me things about myself that were lies until they spoke it true and I'm... I need you,” he ended lamely, unsure how to express this feeling crushing down on him, this feeling of needing this one person in the universe able to tell him who he was when he had lost himself, the one person knowing him better than himself.

The Master stayed silent for a long while, looking at him with calculating eyes and for a second, the Doctor thought he would never answer, then he opened his arms for a silent invitation.

The Doctor let himself sink into the embrace without a moment's hesitation, taking in the familiar smell and for a second all he needed was in that, just the feeling of being held, of being held together, of his mind feeling the presence of another, trusted, mind next to his and for a tiny, little bit he didn't have to be a leader or a hero or a friend to anyone, just someone to be held.

“So,” the Master began talking after a little while, a casual conversational tone in his voice, while he wrapped his arms around the Doctor a little tighter, soothingly rocked him in his arms. “You're in luck, you know? Only came back last week. Of course, I wasn't planning on spending a lot of time here, but I figured you'd come back sooner rather than later. Our Lady President seemed to believe something else entirely. Told her all the time that she's wrong, but who ever listens to the renegade.”

The Doctor, having counted at least six different implications of time intentionally scattered in, grinned.

“Oh please, _do_ go on.”

“Time of course,” the Master mumbled amused, his lips now definitely brushing the Doctor's neck, “isn't quite as linear when one flies a Time Machine, so I assume you have not really been gone for merely two days. I assure you, though, it have been two very, very... long days.”

The Doctor's head tilted to the side with a little moan, his long hair falling into his face, but he barely noticed it, with the Master's teeth now scratching his skin ever so lightly, with just the right amount of pressure.

“Not as long as the last nine centuries have been that I have not spent in this bedroom, I am sure,” the Doctor mumbled distractedly, making the Master chuckle into the crook of his neck.

He wasn't exactly sure when his hands had wandered underneath his coat and slowly starting shedding it, he wasn't sure how he suddenly ended up on his back, his legs wrapped around the Master as he took him slowly and thoroughly and he sure as hell wasn't sure how he still managed to whisper the most beautiful truths about time into his ear, when all the Doctor could do was lie there, listen and let it sweep over him, clear him from the inside out, as the Master piece for piece put him back together.

“That,” he laughed hoarsely, after they had come quite a few times and the Master was lying next to him, looking rather smug, “Was some of the weirdest dirty talk I have ever received from you.”

He laughed, his chest rising and falling quicker with the movement, the little bit of blanket he had thrown over them slightly shifting, and for a second, the Doctor thought it was easily the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, something he had thought to never be able to see again. He kissed the Master's shoulder tenderly, before snuggling up to it, burying his face in his skin, feeling utterly at peace after all.

“Well, it did its job,” the Master grinned, placing a kiss on his hair. “So I'm not complaining about your questionable preferences.”

They lay in peaceful silence for a while, both drifting off, both lost in their own thoughts, but each of them at the brims of the other's mind, feeling complete and at one for a bit. It was the Doctor, who finally had to break the peace.

“I think I should go.”

The Master threw him a sharp glance that he could only face with an apologetic, little smile of his saddest kinds.

“I left my friends in my TARDIS, they must be worrying by now. I left them quite... Well, I'm a bad liar, you know that, they were worried already before I had left.”

The Master rolled his eyes. “More human friends, of course.”

“Actually, C'rizz is... I'm not... I'm not exactly sure _what_ he is, but he can change his colour, it's quite amusing:”

“Doctor,” the Master sighed as he got up, offering him his clothes with a theatrical gesture. “Off you go then. Do make sure to stop in here before the next millennia.”

“Ah,” the Doctor grinned, stealing himself a quick kiss. “You have to excuse me, my sense of time is still completely jumbled up from all of these anti time matters. Millennia... Millennia... what was that again? Oh.”

He gave the Master a playful grin as he put on his shoes.

“Tomorrow, right? I'm sure that must be tomorrow.”


End file.
